The Conquest (Peregrine 2)

"Your hotheaded brother may kill her if she isn't a virgin, and Hugh Marshall will no doubt praise him for it."

She didn't understand at all. If Anne Marshall was a virgin, too, then how could she know so much of lovemaking? Zared wasn't sure what the man was saying, but she knew that she felt insulted. Her brothers had always treated her like a child, and this man was treating her like a child as well.

She turned her head away from him and started to get off the bed. She was not going to humiliate herself further by asking more questions.

"Zared," he whispered, pulling her to him.

She started to fight him, struggling against him. She didn't like the way he smirked at her and talked of other women.

He pinned her to the bed with his big body, but her arms were free, and she began to beat him on the back and shoulders. "Release me!" she demanded. "I hate you. I hate having you near me."

He caught her head in his hands and held her steady while he began to kiss her lips. She kept them closed for a moment, but the sensation was very pleasant, and she couldn't resist him for long. He nibbled at her lower lip, and the tip of his tongue very sweetly ran along the crevice between her lips. He kissed her eyes and her cheeks.

It was as though no one had ever touched her before—and in truth very few people had—and she was hungry for physical contact. She forgot that he was supposed to be her enemy, and she opened her mouth to his. It was she who turned her head sideways so that she could kiss him more deeply. Her arms stopped beating on his broad bac

k, and they went around him to hold him as tightly as possible.

Her life had been spent in very physical ways. She was no prim and proper miss who had spent her youth behind an embroidery frame. Instead she had grown up on the back of a horse with a sword in her hand. She was used to exuberance and a great deal of movement.

When she felt desire pouring through her she acted on it with all the enthusiasm that she had been allowed to express in her life. She put her tongue in his mouth and wrapped her legs about his hips, locking her ankles together.

When he seemed to want to pull away from her she went with him, hanging onto him when he rolled over so that she was on top of him.

Tearle had to take her by the shoulders and pull her away from him. He lay on his back looking up at her, and there was an expression of amazement on his face. "Where did you learn that?" he said, and there was barely concealed rage in his voice.

It took her a moment to remember who she was, where she was, and who he was. She was on top of him, her legs straddling his hips, the position he had taken with her earlier. It felt good to be on top of him, rather as though she had wrestled him to the ground and was holding him there. "Learn what?" She smiled down at him.

He did not return her smile but instead threw her to the other side of the bed and got off of it. "Some man must have taught you that. Was it Colbrand? When you were with him in that pond did you do more than bathe him?"

She was taken aback by his words, and she could feel anger rising in her, but then she relaxed against the pillows. "He taught me nothing. I know what I know."

At that he caught her about the waist, pulled her off the bed, and stood her before him. "You may not want to be my wife, but if I so much as catch you looking at another man I will—" He broke off.

"You will what?" she whispered.

He released her and stood there looking at her for a moment. "Put your shoes on and come downstairs. Supper grows cold."

When she was alone in the room Zared hugged herself and twirled around the room, the heavy velvet skirt whirling about her.

"You will have supper now, my lord?"

Tearle gave a start and looked up from his goblet of wine. "Oh, Margaret, I didn't see you. Has she come down yet?"

"No," Margaret said slowly. "I imagine that she will find it difficult to dress herself."

"You do not miss much, do you?" He smiled at the woman who had come to his mother when they were both girls. Tearle's mother had died in Margaret's arms.

"I could not help notice that you are mad in love with her."

"She hates me," he said gloomily.

Margaret nearly laughed aloud at that. "The girl who gave you such a look of longing in the courtyard does not hate you."

"You have not heard her speak to me. Ah, sometimes she desires me, if I kiss her enough and tell her that she is pretty, but she desires that from any handsome man." He snorted. "She desires that even from me, who she thinks is ugly." He looked up at Margaret. "She is a Peregrine."

Margaret's face lost its laughter. She went to Tearle and put her hand on his shoulder. "You were always a good boy. That you'd marry this boy-girl to settle a feud is very noble of you."

"I tricked her into marrying me," he snapped. "And I didn't marry her to settle a feud. I married her because I wanted her."